by Helen Slavin
“Here… here… sit down for a minute.” Anna almost pushed her onto a nearby hummock of grass. Seren sat and caught her breath.
“I’m sorry.”
“No need.” Anna smiled. Seren’s face looked white in the moonlight. Anna felt a strange anxiety.
“My feet are killing me.” Seren laughed wryly and looked down and stamped her left foot. “It’s these bloody boots.”
“New?” Anna stated. They were full-on hiking boots, rigid and brown, the kind that came with specifications. They offered no comfort and explained Seren’s clumsy progress. Anna sat on the nearest rock and began to unlace her own almost worn out boots. Seren watched her peel off her socks and roll up her jeans. Anna stood up. Seren looked at her for a moment.
They ambled back along the shoreline picking their way among the soft sandy sediment and the wide flat stones. The water licked at their soles but Seren dodged each time, keeping her distance and making certain to keep Anna between her and the water. It became like a game, but Anna’s strange anxiety lingered, flaring as the water rose and fell. She was a defence somehow, a barrier for Seren.
At the porch Anna sat to put her boots back on and, without a word, Seren headed inside. Anna turned at the sound of the lock turning. The lights went off in Cob Cottage and there was silence.
Anna laced her boots and sat for a long time on the porch. She no longer felt that her presence bothered their odd guest, or perhaps it happened that right at this moment she did not care if it did. She waited, feeling the familiarity of the place soothe her, until the clouds gathered in and hid the moon.
* * *
Back at her mother’s house Emz had gone to bed and the place was in darkness. Anna fumbled with the keypad for the lighting. It beeped grumpily but the house remained in darkness. There was one place she could switch on the light.
In the double garage her grandmother’s desk lamp made a pool of warm light by the spoonback chair. Anna sank down into its neat comfort. The long thin vertical window at the rear of the garage looked out onto the low-maintenance garden. Anna thought that the trouble with low-maintenance gardens was that there was nothing in them and then she was stumbling at the lake’s edge, the ground breaking and crumbling, and the water was knives, silver and flashing and out to get her and all she could breathe was water and then her grandmother spoke, reaching a strong hand through the rushing liquid.
“Anna.”
And Anna woke, her neck stiff from her night in the chair, to see dawn pinking the sky outside.
7
Man of the Moment
Several events had led to Charlie having to head home in the dark and on foot. The shoes she had bought in Castlebury yesterday afternoon were not made for walking and they dangled from her hand, one of the heels coming astray from the vamp. She was quite cold too; her jacket was still on the back seat of Aron’s car.
It was all her own fault. She was making a list.
Event One. Well. Now she thought about it, it was hard to pinpoint. How far back did you need to go with all this drama?
She could take it back to the first day she had ever met Aron. She could take it back to the first day she had ever seen him, on orientation day at the Alderman Hadley Community School when she was twelve. That was quite far, quite as distant as the moon which was now shining down on her, showing her crappy dress, the ladder in her tights, the smear of her lipstick.
She could take it to the first moment of his mouth on hers, the electricity of his hands making contact with her skin.
“It’s too late now.” She saw him saying the words, his face reflected in the windscreen, and they seemed to have another meaning. His eyes. A blue like that found in the Arctic only colder still.
Charlie had looked at her watch as he drove; not even one handed, just his fingers on the wheel as if he was in control of the universe.
“Too late?”
“Yeah. We could have gone out if we hadn’t spent the night taxi-cabbing your family around the neighbourhood.” His gaze was fixed on the road ahead.
“It’s appreciated Aron. You know how Anna is at the minute. Thank you.”
“It’s too late now.” He gave a shrug and, just for good measure, a yawn, leisurely and catlike.
“It’s only half nine. We could go out.”
“Where?” He said it simply.
“To eat. To that new place in Castlebury? The leisure park. There’s a cinema.”
He said nothing, his fingers teasing the steering wheel so the car moved its sleek way around the corner.
“I’m not eating at half nine.” He shook his head.
“Aren’t you hungry?” She was trying to be kittenish, leaned towards him. He blanked her.
“I’m not eating at half nine.” And she understood the decree and wanted to defy it.
“Depends what’s on the menu.” And she was rewarded with his stare, the one that told her she had ascertained what it was he wanted, and he was pleased.
He drove out along the dual carriageway and pulled in at the turn off for Leap Woods BBQ site. They had come to Leap Woods forever, sometimes walking up there from school before Aron ever had a car. Now, his car yawed along the narrow tarmac track. At their usual spot there was a camper van with an awning rigged up and a middle-aged couple had lit one of the metal BBQ pits. Aron cursed and turned round sharply, the car spitting gravel.
There were other places. Aron was driving too fast down the track now, the car sliding in the rain-washed dirt so that the lowest branches and the spires of desiccated September undergrowth whipped at the bodywork.
He pulled down into the trees past a sign that said No Entry: Forestry Works in Progress.
His mouth on hers. The electricity of his hands on her skin.
He shifted his seat back as she slipped her shoes off.
“No. Keep the shoes on.” His voice a command and his hand reaching for her dress, tearing it slightly as he tugged it over her head and she slipped out of her slip as he unzipped his fly. She was angled now, the shoes giving her a little extra height, a little extra, a little more and she was lost.
“Did you miss me?” she whispered, her lips brushing his ear. He smelled of aftershave, some Tom Ford leathery stuff that he liked, and Charlie tried to remember how he used to smell, at their Leap Woods kissing sessions in Year 10. Clean. That didn’t quite cover it. She was sniffing harder at him now, trying to find the proper scent of him.
“What are you doing?” Aron pulled back a little.
“Smelling you…”
He gave her a questioning look.
“Can you not do it like a bloodhound?” He grinned and jabbed a kiss at her, his hands sliding back around her waist.
“Did you miss me?” Her question had gone unanswered.
“I was only away a week.” His mouth was busy with her neck, licking down into her cleavage now, his hands reaching up to push… Charlie leaned out of reach, almost dislodging the rear view as she looked down at him.
“I’ll take that as a no then, shall I?” Charlie did not like the way she sounded and yet she couldn’t seem to help herself, the whiny voice was hers and it was insisting on being heard.
“Course I missed you… but literally Chaz, it was a just a week.” He grinned, it was an old silly grin, the kind he had always used thinking its charm would excuse him for doing something thoughtless or careless.
She was getting out of the car, the door swinging heavily, like a dungeon opening.
“Where’re you going? You need a pee?” Aron draggled his fingers through his hair. She had her shoes on and her fingers were pulling at the edges of her dress to hold it in place and she was walking, walking, walking and he was shouting and then he was pulling the car up beside her.
“Get in.”
Charlie kept walking, keeping to the darkened edge of the light path that the headlights cut through the darkness. She could hear him running behind her.
“You’re being stupid. Get in.”
&n
bsp; She said nothing, walking, walking, felt the trees rising tall around her and her feet were about to run into their cover when Aron lifted her from the ground into his arms.
“Hey.” His hands on her skin.
* * *
They drove in silence.
The housing development was at the Castlebury marina. They parked in the basement garage in what looked like a nest of monster luxury vehicles and Aron took her hand and walked her in through the security coded door to the lift. As they waited for the lift he kissed her, greedily snuffling at her neck, one hand under her dress, the other reaching to stop the lift.
His flat was new, the main living/kitchen area overlooking the marina at Castlebury. It was painted a cold blank white and was almost empty, just the big screen TV and a leather chair in the main room. Aron opened the fridge, its dull electronic hum intensifying, the light bitter white, the beers clanking and cold. He moved, without looking at her, towards the bedroom. The bed beyond, the white linen like snow, an island. She felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath.
Charlie didn’t take the lift, instead she was running down the stairs, tempted to slide down the perfect brushed metal handrail. She could hear the lift in its shaft and knew that Aron was in it, coming after her. The number by the door read G and so she pushed through it, skittering past the lift doors, the number ticking down from 2 so she was just footsteps ahead of him.
The heel broke from her shoe just as she was charging towards the night bus by the Japanese restaurant. She staggered aboard and scrabbled around for change before going to sit in the corner at the back where, should Aron still be in pursuit, he would be unable to see her. She hunkered down a little just to be certain as the bus swung past the marina car park.
She got off at the bottom of Old Castle Road and walked into town. The broken shoes were a pain to carry and, at the first bin she came to, she ditched them because she didn’t want their carcasses in her flat. Tonight, she was going to the flat, her feet were taking her there because she could not face her sisters just yet. She could not pull off the breezy mood she would have to fake to avoid triggering an autopsy of her evening.
No. She still could not pinpoint the events. Event One could be his return from Glasgow. Or him calling to say he wanted to see her. Event Two. She thought of the headlights in the wood, the need she had felt to run into the trees. Event Two though. Hmm. There had been that moment with the fire pit and the camper van. Like guardians, like the Watch. Oh, no. She was getting too tired now, it was all a tangle in her head. She crossed the market place, aware of the old stones of the paving flags under her almost bare feet.
The flat felt damp as it always did, as if the real tenants ought to be frogs. Charlie pulled off her dress and slip in the kitchen as she waited for the kettle to boil, pushing the garments deep into the waste bin. She moved through into the bedroom as the kettle continued its roar, pulling on her sweatpants and her t-shirt and her Drawbridge hoodie. The hoodie smelt of the malt shed, and she breathed it in deeply, looking out through the window at the blank of castle wall in front of her. It was not much of a view if you were after hilly vistas spotted with sheep.
She had no idea what she was doing. Freefall. Not even sure she had a parachute. And where did freefall end?
She ate a bag of crisps standing by the shelf that the landlord referred to as ‘the breakfast bar’ and tried not to think.
8
Light on Water
Seren Lake was disconnected. The young woman had been friendly enough showing her the cottage, but she hadn’t thought about that, she hadn’t linked herself to that humanity. Instead she’d been distracted by the sound of the cars in the distance, of how many and where they might have journeyed from and who was at the wheel.
“Enjoy,” had been the young woman’s farewell. What had she said her name was? Seren felt it was very important suddenly that she remember. She scrolled back through her memory to the young woman offering her hand. The hand she couldn’t shake because her own were shaking too hard and she would be caught out. Charlie. That was the name. Charlie.
For a long time after Charlie drove away Seren had stood in the kitchen watching the woods. She had always been urban, her borders were metal and stone and glass, not wood and leaf and she was uncertain. She watched the light through the branches and the shadows shift dark to light with the movement of clouds.
They had always lived at the top of things, at the top of a staircase, at the top of the tower block, at the top of town. She rode home from school on the top of the bus and she walked home on top of the walkway that swooped across the flyover and she looped across town on the footbridges that linked the car park with the new shopping mall. When she began work, it was at a solicitors in the almost attic at the top of a narrow staircase in the old town. And where she had lived last of all was a fortress, a topmost apartment in the warehouse conversion where the corridors were like a maze and she was a mouse.
She felt as though she had not touched on the ground until the moment she stepped from the car and walked to the cottage. Still staring out of the kitchen she arranged her thoughts. The trees, she realised, were not immediately reassuring and so she moved into the main room.
She still had her coat on. Prepared for flight. There was a door so, should anyone or anything enter at the back, she would be able to make an escape. With that plan firmly placed in the emergency room of her head she looked out at the lake.
It had been rose gold an hour or so ago but now the sun was lower in the sky and the water was tempered to a deep bronze flashed with black. She wanted, with desperation, to step out and walk to the shore. She wasn’t sure she could manage it. The seventeen steps from the car to the cottage had been difficult. For now, she could manage to sit in this chair and look out. To the right there were stones, she could see a broad flat stone that could be a seat. How many steps would it take to get there? She measured with her eyes, walking them from the porch, down the three steps and across the sandy earth and the pebbles. Grass, mosses, velvet green.
It was only the first day. She needed to give herself breathing space. She had come here for a reason, there was a reason it had stood out on the webpage at the library, the cottage had spoken to her, hadn’t it?
There had been a family holiday long ago where they had gone to a lake up in the North. Her father had rented a log cabin and they had gone fishing. It had been good to eat a fish she had caught. But the holiday was cut short after Seren fell in the lake and almost drowned.
She had not been able to swim back then, and you can be assured that her parents taught her very soon after that. Seren did not recall the incident clearly. She and her father had been out in a small motor boat and he’d moved to open up their picnic box and the next thing Seren knew she was waking up in the local hospital.
After that she swam, but only in the strict blue and white chlorinated confines of the local swimming pools.
She thought of the medals, the galas, how everything stopped when her father died.
Except the dreams of the lake. Ever afterwards she dreamt of the lake, of the green depths, of herself, her skin speckled like a fish.
She thought she might have napped but she did not, time ticked down, and the light faded. Her thirst to be submerged in water was unabated and she thought of Charlie Way demonstrating the shower in the curved bathroom.
That was when she noticed there weren’t any towels and she couldn’t even manage to be nice to the woman on the phone.
* * *
She had forgotten that the woman was coming. It was as simple an explanation as that. She’d been napping she thought, but she wasn’t sure and then the knock on the door jarred at her. She sat completely still and listened into the dark. Moonlight gleamed softly through the window, broken into shards on the surface of the water. It was so beautiful, she drifted away. Knock knock knock. She moved to the small narrow hallway and the knocking came again and she couldn’t move. She stepped into the kitchen, glanced o
ut through the window. Seren glimpsed the young woman moving around the side of the house. She could wait, let her leave the towels.
Except when she realised that the young woman was going to walk to the lake she could not stop herself reaching for the door. She fumbled and then switched the light on. She was going to be too late.
“Wait. Please?”
* * *
They did not talk as they made their way around the lake. Or did they? Seren couldn’t remember. She could only remember the tug of the water and how she had had to keep away from it and yet be near it. She’d bought the boots as a practicality. She had no idea how this trip was going to pan out and the boots had been an attempt to ground herself. She’d stood in the shop and tried to look like she knew what she was doing. She needed to be practical. That was why she had been sleeping in the car these last weeks. Lock the doors. Get off the map. Or the grid. Wasn’t that what it was called? Vanish, anyway.
When they returned she ran for the safety of the cottage, locked the door and stumbled towards the small sofa. She did not remember lying down.
* * *
In the morning the sunlight was coolly golden on the water. As she drank her tea she opened the rear doors and the sounds of the lake washed in. Rippled, splashed, trickled. For the first time in a long time, Seren Lake was hungry.
9
Permanent Black
Tuesdays were usually quiet at the Castle Inn but this particular week a party of French women had rolled up and, having invaded the Castle itself, they had afterwards descended on the Castle Inn for lunch. Anna had been steamed and baked in the kitchen and now, with the rush over and the French women burbling and mewing their way back to their coach she had an hour or two in town.
